does ibb have a cap?

Nephew

I got irish broadband installed today (breeze 1mb) and I'm 90% sure I heard it doesn't have a monthly cap but just to make sure

optiplexgx270

no cap just a fairness policy (basically if your taking the piss and downloading 24/7) im up to 13Gb in first 8 days.

Nephew

how fair are we talking?

jesus_thats_gre

I went as far as 48gigs one month..

Ebonyks

Considering i'm just over my cap this month and consistantly over this time every month, they don't seem to have a problem with it. I've never been cut off yet...but I may have spoke too soon. I shut prob shut my fat face now.

I'm sorry IOL for a being a big liar, I'm just a poser wannabe that likes to wave their mammoth monthly download figure on public forums.

Dagnammit how many conversations has there been on this topic? Someone do the math.

Nephew

Is there any way of checking online how much you've downloaded/uploaded with Irish broadband?

Would a gig a day be an acceptable amount?

Blaster99

IBB don't measure it (from what I know), so they have no way of letting you know. They incidently don't seem to know what their network does at the best of times. You can get tools to measure it yourself if you care. I can't see why you would bother, though.

Nephew

So basically I could download 50 gigs a month if I wanted to without any repercussions?

Nephew

Nephew wrote:

So basically I could download 50 gigs a month if I wanted to without any repercussions?

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

I went as far as 48gigs one month..

Seems to be the case.

jesus_thats_gre

That was my first month when I went nuts.. It average out at about 20 gigs or so now.

johncorleone

Nephew wrote:

I got irish broadband installed today (breeze 1mb) and I'm 90% sure I heard it doesn't have a monthly cap but just to make sure

Unfortunately they don't have a cap

Infini

johncorleone wrote:

Unfortunately they don't have a cap

Whadda ya mean unfortunately. Most people with even a bit of sanity would kill for a cap free net connection!!

johncorleone

Infini wrote:

Whadda ya mean unfortunately. Most people with even a bit of sanity would kill for a cap free net connection!!

Most people who can see past the end of their nose would realise uncapped service = heavily contended service. I know which one i'd prefer.

optiplexgx270

huh he either got it wrong or is completely MAD or on the ballymun mast with crap DL rates and blaming in on serial DL'ers

optiplexgx270

Yeah i hate my "uncapped service = heavily contended" 1Mb service off 3rock (very busy mast) with 120K downloads and 5ms pings to boards im very upset :twat:

johncorleone

optiplexgx270 wrote:

huh he either got it wrong or is completely MAD or on the ballymun mast with crap DL rates and blaming in on serial DL'ers

The short sightedness of people on these boards never ceases to amaze me.
Which would you rather :

A) A contended network (even if you don't have this problem now, you will in the future, it's just a matter of time) with no caps.

or

A relatively uncontended network with a reasonable cap ? I'd choose B every time.

It's a real pity IBB don't offer a separate capped service, lower contention ratio service. I know i'd sign up for it.

Moriarty

Optiplexgx270 banned for a week for personal attacks.

jesus_thats_gre

Same boat myself, off some building in Stillorgan.. Averga downloads of 120kb/s with about 40ms pings to UK game servers.. They suck so much.

johncorleone

optiplexgx270 wrote:

Yeah i hate my "uncapped service = heavily contended" 1Mb service off 3rock (very busy mast) with 120K downloads and 5ms pings to boards im very upset :twat:

As I said, it's just a matter of time before the backhaul and/or transit is filled. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Moriarty

johncorleone, uncapped services do not automatically equate to worse service by any stretch of the imagination. It depends almost entirely on whether the ISP wants to offer a decent quality service or not.

johncorleone

Moriarty wrote:

johncorleone, uncapped services do not automatically equate to worse service by any stretch of the imagination. It depends almost entirely on whether the ISP wants to offer a decent quality service or not.

I disagree. (Although I do agree that it doesn't automatically equate to a worse service, it does however vastly increase the chances of a contended network, especially in the case of a limited bandwidth Wireless network such as IBB)

It's not economically feasible for an ISP to provide an uncapped service to a large number of users (Unless they're a Tier1 with essentially free bandwidth).

Transit in Dublin is expensive, and if an ISP offers the opportunity to continuously hog it you will reach a stage where the transit becomes congested. The first couple of times this happen the ISP may be able to justify buying more bandwidth but eventually they reach a situation where it is no longer economically sustainable to keep buying more transit so people don't have to put up with contention. It is simply a matter of time, numbers, and the % of your customers who are bandwidth hogs.

Of course none of this takes into account the backhaul problem which for many ISPs will kick in far before the transit issues.

Moriarty

Most people don't max out their connection. Far from it infact. That's why large scale uncapped services are able to work fine - and they do work fine, you only need to take a look across the puddle to the UK to see hundreds of isps with tens of thousands of customers running uncapped services at a profit while keeping latency low and available bandwidth to individual users high.

johncorleone

Moriarty wrote:

Most people don't max out their connection. Far from it infact. That's why large scale uncapped services are able to work fine - and they do work fine, you only need to take a look across the puddle to the UK to see hundreds of isps with tens of thousands of customers running uncapped services at a profit while keeping latency low and available bandwidth to individual users high.

I think you need to take the marketing hype of these ISPs with a pinch of salt, they may promise a lot but have you got first hand experience of being a user on all these networks ?

In order to be fair i've looked at the broadband offerings of some of the biggest providers in the UK : Wanadoo, BT UK, Virgin.net & Tiscali. All of them either provide a hard download limit, run a "Fair usage policy" (A download limit in sheeps clothing) or run a highly contended network.

Tiscali (A huge European provider) for example has an offering which looks rosy from their description of their on their homepage, (2Mb, unlimited downloads) that is until you find the terms and conditions small print :

"Tiscali operates a fair usage policy, if you send and receive 30GB or more of data in any calendar month and we believe that your use of the broadband service is adversely affecting our network (or any part of it) or other customers, we may regulate your usage (at our sole discretion). For example, we may give priority to light users over heavy users during peak times. Tiscali reserves the right to terminate your broadband service by providing you with 30 days' notice in writing in the event that you send and receive in excess of 30GB or more data in any calendar month and we believe your use of the broadband service is adversely affecting our network (or any part of it) or our other customers and our regulation of your usage has been ineffective."

Like so many things, the grass is always greener on the other side. Much of the talk about uncapped, uncontended networks is marketing hype/ propaganda and apply to networks where there simply isnt enough customers for contention to be an issue. IBB are IMO in the second bracket. It is only a matter of time if their customers numbers keep increasing before other 34MB/155Mb backhauls become full like those at Ballymun/Blanchardstown and take weeks/months to be upgraded.

The bottom line is if an ISP wants to cover costs they do this by either providing for exmaple a 100Mb pipe (and contending it for 2000 - 4000 users,20:1 or 40:1 respectively) and hoping people play fairly or by capping the connections to allow customers to always have their bandwidth. You can't have it both ways.

Turlock

johncorleone wrote:

I think you need to take the marketing hype of these ISPs with a pinch of salt, they may promise a lot but have you got first hand experience of being a user on all these networks ?

In order to be fair i've looked at the broadband offerings of some of the biggest providers in the UK : Wanadoo, BT UK, Virgin.net & Tiscali. All of them either provide a hard download limit, run a "Fair usage policy" (A download limit in sheeps clothing) or run a highly contended network.

Tiscali (A huge European provider) for example has an offering which looks rosy from their description of their on their homepage, (2Mb, unlimited downloads) that is until you find the terms and conditions small print :

"Tiscali operates a fair usage policy, if you send and receive 30GB or more of data in any calendar month and we believe that your use of the broadband service is adversely affecting our network (or any part of it) or other customers, we may regulate your usage (at our sole discretion). For example, we may give priority to light users over heavy users during peak times. Tiscali reserves the right to terminate your broadband service by providing you with 30 days' notice in writing in the event that you send and receive in excess of 30GB or more data in any calendar month and we believe your use of the broadband service is adversely affecting our network (or any part of it) or our other customers and our regulation of your usage has been ineffective."

Like so many things, the grass is always greener on the other side. Much of the talk about uncapped, uncontended networks is marketing hype/ propaganda and apply to networks where there simply isnt enough customers for contention to be an issue. IBB are IMO in the second bracket. It is only a matter of time if their customers numbers keep increasing before other 34MB/155Mb backhauls become full like those at Ballymun/Blanchardstown and take weeks/months to be upgraded.

The bottom line is if an ISP wants to cover costs they do this by either providing for exmaple a 100Mb pipe (and contending it for 2000 - 4000 users,20:1 or 40:1 respectively) and hoping people play fairly or by capping the connections to allow customers to always have their bandwidth. You can't have it both ways.

That's cover yer ar$e talk, I doubt anyone has ever got pulled for that.

BigMoose

I lived in the UK until 2 years ago when I moved to Ireland, so I have first hand experiences of Broadband in the UK, plus have many mates (etc) still there using various providers. I have never seen contention used as a marketing issue there nor when I left were there many ISPs that had any capped products. There are now some (typically the cheaper lower end offerings). Any ISP with an ounce of sense will have a fair usage policy however that does not mean they often (if ever) have to enforce them. Most poeple I know on cappless products in the UK download 24x7 and have never heard from the ISP. It's there as a get out claus IF the ISP ever has to use it. If the network is decent enough (and I have no idea if Eircoms is or not behind the scenes) then caps or contention are not a major issue. Dont try to make out that caps are the guarantee to a usable product. It simply is not true.

I am now on IBB and have no problems with contention/speed or download usage.

johncorleone

BigMoose wrote:

I lived in the UK until 2 years ago when I moved to Ireland, so I have first hand experiences of Broadband in the UK, plus have many mates (etc) still there using various providers. I have never seen contention used as a marketing issue there nor when I left were there many ISPs that had any capped products. There are now some (typically the cheaper lower end offerings).

Of the four examples I gave you none of them are small providers. All have a cap.

BigMoose wrote:

Any ISP with an ounce of sense will have a fair usage policy however that does not mean they often (if ever) have to enforce them. Most poeple I know on cappless products in the UK download 24x7 and have never heard from the ISP. It's there as a get out claus IF the ISP ever has to use it. If the network is decent enough (and I have no idea if Eircoms is or not behind the scenes) then caps or contention are not a major issue. Dont try to make out that caps are the guarantee to a usable product. It simply is not true.

I never said they were a guarantee to a usable product. What I did say is you either get no contention or no caps, you can't have both. And if it does work like that your ISP and by consequence you are subsidising heavy downloaders.

BigMoose wrote:

I am now on IBB and have no problems with contention/speed or download usage.

I'm also an IBB customer, and I'm currently connected to a mast which has had a heavily contended backhaul for the past 2 months, YMMV. I would prefer if IBB offered a capped service for me so when I want access I can get access. Why should my access be affected because someone else wants to leave his P2P running all day every day ? (Of course the ISP are at fault here too).

BigMoose

I would prefer if IBB offered a capped service for me so when I want access I can get access. Why should my access be affected because someone else wants to leave his P2P running all day every day ? (Of course the ISP are at fault here too).

I totally agree with you that if the network cannot handle heavy users, it is unfair for you to suffer because of their usage. However in the IBB case the users have done nothing wrong. They have paid for a capless product and the ISP should provide one. What annoys me more is those that have paid for a 4G capped product (when there are higher capped products out there) and still use 30G+ a month. If you are unhapy with the level of service this product gives, should you not consider an xDSL alternative that has caps? (there's no guarantee you can actually get these products I know).

Given that most other countries can provide numerous capless products (at a differentiated cost to capped products - the consumer then has a choice), I dont think you can blame over use for the problems in Ireland. It's the poor state of offerings here. There's no reason why this market should be any worse than other countries to provide perfectly working capless products - which is what you have in the UK. Also it appears that the Eircom network doesnt suffer with 30G+ downloads each month as several here claim to do it. Although I admit boards users aren't typical Irish BB market users!

Legion

Nephew wrote:

So basically I could download 50 gigs a month if I wanted to without any repercussions?

If your on the Ballymun mast you will be lucky if you download 50mb a month :mad:

Nephew

seriously, it can't be that bad? :eek:

i'm in bray on the breeze 1mb package. i carried out a speed test here. i'm just wondering if these are typical speeds in bray.

2005-03-11 18:32:11 EST: 657 / 749
Your download speed : 673315 bps, or 657 kbps.
A 82.1 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 767490 bps, or 749 kbps.